EPA's Pruitt and staff to attend chemical industry meeting at luxury resort next week

[Zorro]

Source: Washington Post

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt will travel next week to address the American Chemistry Council’s board meeting at a high-end resort on South Carolina’s Kiawah Island, his spokesman confirmed Thursday.

Pruitt, who has traveled across the country to meet with industry groups regulated by the EPA, is scheduled to address the board during a session on Nov. 9, according to the event’s official schedule. The administrator plans to bring eight EPA staffers to the event. The contingent includes his chief of staff, a senior adviser on state and regional affairs, a press aide, a public engagement official, a security detail of three and an advance person.

The EPA on Thursday said the government is paying for the group’s expenses.

“This is part of Administrator Pruitt’s ‘back-to-basics’ tour as he continues to meet with as many stakeholders as possible,” EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said in a statement. “Administering the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), amended by the 2016 Lautenberg Chemical Safety Act, is one of EPA’s core functions.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/11/02/epas-pruitt-and-staff-to-attend-meeting-at-luxury-resort-next-week

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Nice gig Pruitt has going on here.

[Spiranthes]

1. Pruitt needs to be in prison.

This guy needs to be criminally prosecuted. People have no idea the number of lives that will be severely impacted by the destruction of USEPA.

[StevieM]

2. Scott Pruitt is the worst member of Donald Trump's cabinet. And that is really saying something.

eom

[lordsummerisle]

3. I used to read about Bizarro World in Superman comics back in the 60's

I never thought I'd ever be living in it though...

[TomCADem]

4. EPA chief says wind tax credits should be eliminated: Makes no mention of fossil fuel subsidies

I guess we can just rename the EPA, the EDA, the Environmental Degradation Agency.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/10/epa-chief-says-wind-tax-credits-should-be-eliminated/

On Monday night, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Scott Pruitt told a meeting of the Kentucky Farm Bureau that the federal government should end tax credits for the wind industry. Although the EPA doesn’t have control over tax incentives for renewable energy, the agency has considerable authority to hamper similar programs that boost renewables—most recently seen in Pruitt’s efforts to repeal the Clean Power Plan—and his comments reflect how energy policy is being approached in the nation’s environmental bureau.

"I’m not in Congress, and the state of Oklahoma has similar incentives, [but] I would do away with these incentives that we give to the wind industry. I would let them stand on their own and compete against coal and natural gas and other sources," Pruitt told the audience, with senator Mitch McConnell at his side. (Senate majority leader McConnell, notably, does have sway over federal tax incentives.)

Pruitt added that he believed the US government should, “let utility companies make real-time market decisions on those kinds of things as opposed to being propped up with tax incentives and other types of credits that go through the federal and state level.”

* * *

In his dismissal of wind tax credits, Pruitt also made no mention of the $2 billion in federal tax incentives that are given to fossil fuel producers every year. A recent study found that at the current price of $50 a barrel for oil, nearly half of the discovered-but-not-yet-developed crude oil fields in the US are profitable where they otherwise would not be.

[Thor_MN]

5. "Back to Basics" at a luxury resort. Don't worry, there won't be any scientists there to talk

sciency stuff - they've been banned for doing that. It will just basics, how to funnel money from lobbyists into GOP coffers.